Netflix's "culture deck," a slideshow presentation outlining the company's values and practices, has been hailed by people like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg as one of Silicon Valley's defining documents.

Now Business Insider has learned that Patty McCord, the architect of that culture and a primary author of the culture deck, has left Netflix.

Netflix confirmed that McCord left the company late last year. In October, Tawni Cranz became the company's chief talent officer. It's not clear what McCord's role was in the intervening months.

Netflix's stock took a dive in 2011 after the company botched the unveiling of a plan to separate its DVD and video-streaming businesses. It has slowly recovered since then, rising considerably in recent months.

There's no evidence of any rancor with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. McCord and Hastings have worked closely for decades, first at Pure Atria, a software company which became part of IBM, and then at Netflix as part of the founding management team. She joined the company in 1998.